Looking for ways to further reduce your compressed air demand? Consider investigating air cylinder actuation. Often times, air cylinders in production machinery only require significant force during a single power stroke, but still use full line pressure to return the cylinder to resting position. Let’s compare the air consumption for double acting versus a spring […]
Air Preparation
Keep an eye on blowing costs
Blowing with compressed air is costly, due to the poor conversion efficiency between electrical energy and compressed air power. Typically for any mechanical operation, it costs about 10 times more to use compressed air to move something — even more if that something is only minute particle, such as dust and wood chips. It is […]
Compressed air fail: Blowoff
A mine had a large 10,000-cfm air compressor installed to feed underground operations. Busy in its heyday, the mine operations had been reduced substantially, and the compressed air demand was on average 3,300 cfm. Unfortunately, even with the reduction in flow over the years, the electrical demand of the air compressor did not drop off […]
Are you still cleaning with compressed air?
Too often during compressed air leak audits, high pressure compressed air personnel cleaning stations are discovered. Use of high pressure compressed air blowing (above 30 psi) is common in plants with dusty environments where workers’ clothing may become soiled. Blow nozzles with safety tips — and pressure regulators used to reduce pressure — are very […]
Compressed air fair: Blowing control
A board plant production line had a quality problem. When the sheets exited the saw that cut the product into standard dimensions, some sawdust and chips stuck to the surface. When the sheets were stacked, this debris would bind itself to the product and be hard to remove, causing quality problems. Faced with this problem, […]
Energy savings modules provide soft start capabilities, non-fieldbus economy
Festo has expanded its intelligent pneumatic energy savings platform beyond the MSE6-E2M (E2M) with two new modules — the MSE6-C2M (C2M) and the MSE6-D2M (D2M). These modules can pay for themselves in less than a year with the energy savings accrued. The platform provides actionable information that supports quality production. The modules in this platform […]
Compressed air fail: Wet air
Air quality is important to a compressed air consumer — having a cool, clean and dry source of compressed air is essential, especially when food products are coming in contact with the compressed air system output. A food products processor had purchased a very efficient cycling refrigerated air dryer a few years ago to condition […]
Compressed air fail: Modulation lesson
A wood products manufacturer had a problem — it was running out of compressed air capacity. Many times a day, the plant pressure would drop and the workers would lose their most critical production line. Faced with this problem, the Maintenance Manager did a search of the company inventory and found a spare 200-hp compressor. […]
Compressed air fail: Dryer freeze
A large home products manufacturer had its compressed air system pressure hooked up to their building management system. System pressure was continuously monitored and alarms would be sent to facility management if the levels dropped below a set low pressure threshold. The facility was suffering an ongoing problem. Many times a day, low pressure alarms […]
Compressed air success: Agitation
A printing plant used intrinsically safe compressed air powered barrel mixers in its ink storage room to ensure the consistency of the color of the company’s products. These vane type air motors ran continuously day and night to keep the ink from separating. A compressed air auditor measured the agitator load and calculated that the […]
